By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Out of the 170 three-bedded rooms in the hostel being set up jointly by the Ministry of Women and Child Development along with the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), these rooms are mostly occupied by women from mainland India since the northeasterners are not coming forward to take seats.
The hostel was set up with an aim to provide “safe, secure, comfortable and affordable accommodation” to working women exclusively from the northeastern region of the country staying in the national capital. But looking at the occupancy ratio in this hostel at South Delhi’s Jasola it is just not serving the very purpose for which it was set up.
Call it poor publicity to sell it as a safer destination with the very aim with which it was set up, restrictions or fear in the minds of northeasterners but the hostel has not been able to pull in the working women even after DoNER has extended subsidy of Rs1,300/- per month per bed.
Official sources said that the hostel does not need any publicity drive since it is a union government initiative to provide safe and secure accommodation to the women from northeast.
They also said that men and women from the northeast prefer to live in their own cluster but they fail to understand that this hostel has been exclusively built to accommodate 500 women from the northeastern region.
“Since there are no takers, we are bound to give beds to other takers who need accommodation in the city,” the sources said.
It is also a matter of curiosity as to why the women from this region are not laying claim on this hostel with full proof security round the clock.
“I and my friends got an opportunity to stay in this hostel. But we feel more secure in staying in those places where there is a bigger concentration of northeast people,” said P Achumi working in an IT firm.
Her counterpart from Arunachal Pradesh said that she prefers to stay near her workplace so that she does not have to travel more.
These working women staying together also help them to shed of the burden of paying high rents.
This Union government initiative has just not been able to remove the fear in the minds of the north-easterners who choose the national capital for better opportunities.
